Peer-to Peer communication

I attended a very useful session today on the Topic of Minute Clinincs, presented by staff from NC State CALS career services. Great ideas at work here! One of the ideas that seemed to work very well that I might like to try is to use student peers in our career education. Of course there's a lot of training needed to utilize students as representatives of the Career Services office, but as shown in this presentation, when done well, peers are great tools to get messages accross to their fellow students. It's an effective tool to get our message out to students, but also, what a great learning/ leadership tool for the students working for career services. We're teaching them along the way too.

If you go to the NACE website to download their presentation, you'll get some great visuals of what they've done. They've shared some great ideas!

The State of NACE

This state of the association address featured President Ralph Brigham, President-Elect Manny Contomanolis, and Executive Director Marilyn Mackes. Intros and a brief dance by Ralph opened up the session focused on NACE's mission & values followed by strategic goals and steps for operationalizing those goals. Wrap-up with Manny's vision for the future.

Marilyn Mackes:
Mission - To facilitate the employment of the college-educated.
Core values

• Integrity
• Knowledge
• Leadership
• Collaboration
• Inclusion
  

Manny Contomanolis:
What does it mean to be a content-focused association? Through various benchmarking channels the question of what kind of association NACE would be. Content-focused serve membership by content provided. Content being knowledge, tools, networking.

Ralph Brigham:
NACE Strategic Plan

1. Surveyed members for input needs & preferences
2. Conducted benchmarking
3. Environmental scans
4. Researched trends for a forward look

Marilyn:
Essential to achieving goals? volunteer leaders, engaged membership, Executive Director and NACE staff Things happen because we make them happen.

Manny:
Strategic Goals:
1. NACE will be acknowledged as the foremost resource related to the college student/graduate employment market.
2. NACE will be used by colleges and employers as the essential connection to support the successful transition of college students into the workplace.

Ralph:
2007-8 Accomplishments: Education, Research, Membership, Member Network Opportunities, Leadership Advancement, Committee Activity

1900 attendees at past two national conferences, ten more vendors than last year, MLI in 17th year, career coaching intensives booked for next three, 1300 employer organizations, 2000 schools, 6000 individual members, 200 related service providers, 30 individuals for second year of leadership advancement program

Committees - 150 volunteers on at least 10 committees producing a number of tools and standards either ready for deployment or creating baselines for more development including recruiter evaluation tools and an international virtual job fair.

Marilyn:
Operational accomplishments - products & services (career coaching workshops, JobChoices magazine, October's Salary Survey will be a new product for delivery and flexibility, NACELink network, more electronic deliveries, Int'l Student Virtual Career Fair, more web-based development), financial viability (membership fees cover 20-25% of operating budget by design, more diversified income streams for more budgetary stability), staff support (40 staff total, new research staffer), technology infrastructure (more web & email delivery, Int'l Student Virtual Career Fair), public & media presence
We are a community accountable to each other and those we serve. Within the community are sub-communities. As a community we are here to advance knowledge.

Manny:
Issues going forward - 2008-9 Planning for the future

• Global Initiatives - Ingrata consortium; clearinghouse for members needing info and connections to understanding, connecting, and growing relationships overseas.
• Tech & Web 2.0 - Intent to better engage membership and rewrite understanding of membership; tools for restructuring how we do business and the nature of our roles in relation to each other as content developers.
  
• Strategic Partnerships - Exploration of greater collaboration with groups like SHRM for shared development of certifications and content
  
• Product/Service Review & Improvement - New products like new meetings, new meeting formats
  
• Professional Mentorship Program - Create formal support
• Leadership Advancement - new training and opportunities built into association to equip and open pathways for prospective leaders
• Increased advocacy role on relevant public issues

Audience comments & questions
Q. How is NACE approaching looming Boomer exit from the U.S. workforce and related regional forces?
A. Still emerging dialogue. Looking to help the general public better understand the issues and their real impact, including debunking rumors and misinformation.

Q. Tell us more about the Leadership Advancement program.
A. Deb Cherek (past President) sought to bring together potential leaders together for ongoing training and engagement and continues to evolve. Further helps identify candidates for roles in a fair and effective manner.

Q. What is NACE doing to stay in contact with retiring practitioners?
A. Historically have wrestled with this. Exploring tapping them for supporting mentorships and some projects are a couple ways to integrate them.

Thoughts?

Gone and Sometimes Forgotten

I'm in the 10:45 session about how career services can (and need) to provide services to alums...particularly "mature" alums (those over 40) who are changing careers, have been laid off, or who can't afford to retire.

The big number is that by 2010, 51% of the workforce will be 40 years or older (a 33% increase since 1980). This aging baby boomer workforce is no surprise...but there are economic and personal factors that complicate this situation. The economic factors include the current recession, offshoring, corporate mergers/restructuring, and globalization. The personal factors include increased life expectancy, need for healthcare coverage in retirement, elevated social awareness, and increased desire to 'direct' own career.

Much of the discussion was around how career services can serve alumni and included examples of best practices in connecting career services and alumni offices, what the current (and future) economic situation means for career services, stories about what alumni are looking for (even if they don't know it!) and how to best utilize these alums on campus.

It was a standing-room only crowd...lots of head-nodding as the issues were laid out...and great questions for the panelists.

Most Grads Don't Want Full-time Employment

Jennifer Kushell of YSN.com just completed her presentation at the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) annual conference in New Orleans. Her presentation was entitled, "What Students Don't Understand About You, Your Company, Your Opportunities -- and What You Can Do About It."

She had a lot of great tips and thoughts but two really stuck out for me:

• There was a lot of discussion about how an increasing number of students are accepting offers from one employer and later rescinding their acceptance in order to accept a later, better offer. This drives employers and college career service offices nuts and burns bridges for the candidates. Yet not one person in the room acknowledged that employers have been just as guilty by rescinding offers they've made to students who are then left without an internship to go to for the summer or, worse yet, a job to go to upon graduation. We need to remember that Gen Y are largely the children of Baby Boomers and that generation has done a very good job of counseling their children that they cannot and should not rely upon the good graces of their employer because the vast majority of employers have repeatedly demonstrated that their loyalty to their employees extends only so far as their profit motives allow. At the end of the day, the employers owe a fiduciary duty to maximize the wealth of their shareholders, not to provide employment to their workers.
  
• Only 49 percent of college seniors who are approaching graduation are interested in working full-time for an employer. Most see themselves owning a franchise, distributorship, or other business within a handful of years of graduating. This is good news for organizations such as Valpak but bad news for many and perhaps most of the traditional employers of college students and recent graduates. They either need to find a way to make their opportunities more entrepreneurial in nature or they will find themselves competing for an increasing shrinking candidate pool.
  

Anticipating 2018 - The tech groups

What follows are the rough notes from 2 mini-breakouts in the NACE Future Dirtections Committee session.

Group #1

Following some introductory notes and a brief demo of Twitter conversation moved into texting and the shift from email for some populations. Broadening of techonology - openess - empowers the expanding

Use the students for credibility building, but what about good management of one's web presence?

Threat of technology being used as a career services bypass in the connection between students and employers.


How can NACE better support our own professional development on this front?
1. Continued best practices presentations/content
2. We need to twitter more
3. Intro'd wikis
4. Student focus groups


Group #2
Basic impact of rise of mobile technologies:
1. changes in etiquette

NACE can help with:
1. Information and support on virtual internships
2. Developing strategic partnerships. What are the elements? Need to be able to customize our services to our different constituents.
3. Shaping of best practices standards/outcomes.
4. Tracking and pushing next practices to get ahead of the curve
5. Global links to mine emerging practices from around the world
6. Guides and workshops to help professionals learn and adopt emerging technologies
7. Shaping of etiquette and standards of professional practices and delivery of services - not being on-call 24/7

Time and resources to implement, how to stay current when there is so much going on and coming out? Do we need to adjust our thinking about timelines for viable or sticky applications/tools?

Colleges having to rethink and subsequently advocate on campus for new measures of success.

Rise of virtual worlds and our need to adapt to new environments for work and socialization to meet needs/expectations of students.

Sessions Update - Day 1

Two of three breakout sessions down and sitting in the third and final one for the day.

So far this year's quest for knowledge has taken me to "On-boarding New Hires Effectively" and "Understanding Reality Bytes". The first on the components of a successful process of bring on new hires, whether interns, co-op students, or permanent employees. Robust content covering the full range of the experience for new hires. Next was a look at one school's work on recruiting and deploying student bloggers for driving up student awareness of services and career related issues. Solid introductory content in that.

And now I'm in "Strategically Assessing the College Recruiting Function". This session comes out of a NACE committee's work this year. Case studies on streamlined tools for, well, assessing college recruiting processes.

Two of my three choices have been employer-side, an unusual choice for a college-side member. Then again, if I'm here to connect with employers, what a great place to find them. Plus it gives me a better idea of their world, their concerns, and their language. This makes it easier to relate to and serve them.

While process focused, this last session has a strong strategic element in the background and integrated into the answers of the Q&A. Members looking for a peek at the tool can find it at naceweb.

Forums@4 is next up with 8-10 topics set.

Exhibit Hall

Walked around the exhibit hall yesterday evening to get a feeling for who is there. A great mixture of service providers, employers, and schools. I didn't count but there are probably 100 exhibitors. Unlike some exhibit halls, this one is in the center of the action and not stuck off in a corner someplace so the organizations which have invested the time and money necessary to have a booth should see a nice return.

Daniel Pink - What Talent Wants

How many political speech writers also write books on business and use Japanese Manga as a medium for career development? Yeah, Daniel Pink.

For an opening keynote Mr. Pink delivered a brisk and energetic speech. Beginning with a humorous overview of his life and career track in all its meanderings, he moved into a talk on the shifts and emerging drivers of the world of work. At the core was the intersection of economics and values.

Economic forces are so "baked in" that they are uninteresting and below the radar of recent college grads. The first of the three is the demise of corporate paternalism. Second, changing economics of production. Third,

1. Demise of corporate paternalism - culturally it was expected and assumed corporations would take care of their employees. Implication? Shift from loyalty/security transaction between employer and individual to talent/opportunity transaction. The axis goes from vertical to horizontal.

2. Changing economics of production - Marx stated revolution would come when the workers controlled the means of production. Did not work in the industrial era, but has become possible in the new tech environment. Factories are big, expensive, and difficult for one person to operate. "Talented people need organizations less than organizations need talented people." Daughter's web comic - www.squirmtheworm.com cited as example of new knowledge and production equation.

3. The emergence of the meaning gap - per capita GDP has tripled over 50 years with no recognition, simultaneously the rate of satisfaction has remained level. Prosperity has liberated us, but not elevated us. More people are now pursuing fulfillment through other channels now available via that prosperity. What does this do our understanding of the nature and inherent value of work itself?

Autonomy, authenticity, mastery, and purpose are the 4 drivers of young contemporary workers. People want autonomy over their time (results oriented work), tasks, techniques (let me do it my way as long as its right), team (do not underestimate the interest of good people to work with good people). They want authenticity, to feel they are themselves in their work. No masks. No Stepford Workers. Mastery or the drive to improve. Give me my feedback so I can get better and master my work. Millenials especially are accustomed to regular, almost continuous, feedback systems. Gaming, E-Bay, Digg It, etc. "They crave it." Finally, purpose is the drive to have transcendence, meaning. Jeff Immelt - "If you want to be a great company, you have to be a good company. The reason why people come to work for GE is that they want to be about something larger than themselves." Increasingly grads want to do work that has a positive impact. Cycles back to autonomy of tasks. "Honoring these values is essential", if companies want to recruit good talent.

The experiment in reaching college students and recent grads - "The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide You'll Ever Need", Pink's manga-styled career guide.

Tactical vs strategic information: which is what and how do we deliver it? Tactical info is gleaned online, students do not seek it from books or campus offices. It is timebound and grows stale quickly. Strategic information is where career service offices can excel by being curators, guides to the tactical information.

What is the animating question for the early 21st century worker? "WTF?!" - Daniel Pink.

early activity

...lots of buzzing about the band last night. And the food was excellent! I hope everyone got a chance to try the gumbo- almost as good as mine!

Plenty of choices today....I'll be the whirling deverish going by....

It Begins...

I am setting in the middle of NACE Quarter having just experienced my first NACE opening session and the exhibit hall. Wow! The marching band sure got things started and the jazz was top notch.

Although I have been a NACE member for a number of years, a Community College Career Center Director doesn't often have the budget to attend conferences out of state. Career Services was not my career of choice; it found me and wouldn't let go despite many interviews and job offers in other fields. Perhaps it was because I didn't consciously choose this path but I never felt like part of a profession. I have always been excited about what I do but a benefit from my new institution is certainly attendance at the NACE Conference. Sitting in the hall with approximately 1900 others, I felt differently about myself and my career. If I get nothing else from this conference (highly unlikely) I will have that new feeling. I am thankful to Iowa State University and my Director, Steve Kravinsky, who believe in professional development.

To all those who have never attended a NACE national conference, who don't know what you're missing.

Let the 2008 Conference begin!

La Nouvelle Orleans Ballroom - 5:38

The Jazz infused opening session is about to begin. The hall is filling with weary travelers and Habitat volunteers, but a buzz, as every year, hangs int he air with networking and reconnecting with old friends and colleagues.

The session kicked off with an energetic jazz marching band leading a NOLA-styled parade complete with beads tossed into the crowd. Welcome to the Big Easy!

Louisiana Association of Colleges and Employers Annual Conference

Later today I speak about how employers can destroy their brand by incorrect using Facebook, MySpace, and other social networking sites. Today's presentation is at the University of New Orleans for the annual conference of the Louisiana Association of Colleges and Employers.

One of the interesting things that I've been encountering these past few months about this topic is that the vast majority of employers still have no presence on Facebook and no strategy for incorporating it into their recruiting strategy even though it is far and away the highest traffic site used by Gen Y. But for those employers who are starting to use Facebook, the consensus is that it is not a place to source but instead to network. Makes sense, doesn't it? A social networking site should be used for networking, not directly for hiring.

On the Ground

Don't know about my fellow bloggers, but I'm here and getting anxious for the conference to begin. First up, though, Habitat for Humanity and a bit of building for the people of NOLA. Hope to meet you on site tomorrow!

Countdown to Annual Conference!

With the last shipment winging its way to New Orleans, we here on staff are getting the last items ready for next week! There are so many fun things this year to do and new people to meet and new things to learn!

The attendee list is posted online (dont panic if you just registered and your name is not there- the list was run May 15) here. See who you might know and make a plan to meet. The convention center is LARGE but we are in a compact space but a meet-up is always fun!
Perhaps you want to be more leading edge and meet through a BLOG(heh!) or via Twitter(Look me up! I'll be twittering when I can!) or Facebook. Use those social tools to make your meeting even more effective!

Remember - FREE WIRELESS is yours! Use it!

Federal Career Opportunities through Partnership for Public Service--at NACE!

As I highlighted in an earlier post, there is a growing interest in careers that benefit the common good. These careers can be found in the exciting diversity of the nonprofit sector, the rapidly growing field of corporate/business social responsibility (CSR or BSR), or the wide range of positions available in all levels of government.

Whether you are just starting to figure out how to answer the increasingly frequent questions by students and alumni about meaningful careers or you have already been involved with finding ways to educate your students and alums about these opportunities, Partnership for Public Service is a great resource to check out and will have several must-attend events at this year’s NACE conference.

The first is the Call to Serve National Summit on Tuesday, May 27th from 2pm to 5pm that brings career services leaders and federal agency representatives together to network, gather and share ideas, and build relationships to collaborate in connecting people to federal government careers. For more information and to RSVP for the Call to Serve National Summit, click on the summit name and look on the right column of the page.

The other event that you will want to put on your schedule is the concurrent session on Wednesday, May 28th at 1pm called “Collaborating to Fill the Federal Skills Gap: How 5 universities and 11 federal agencies made the government an employer of choice.” Agency and university representatives will share effective ways to build a campaign on a campus that allows students to see the federal government as an employer of choice. For the session abstract and location, click here.

With just a week to go, I’m getting excited about all of the NACE events and sessions, but these two are fixtures on my schedule because they address the growing interest in (and availability of!) careers that provide more than just a paycheck.

The Future's so Bright . . .

This year's conference is nearly upon us. Most of us will be wrapping up business in our offices, packing our bags, printing our boarding passes, and confirming our reservations. We may even be meeting with colleagues to determine the sessions of most value and interest to our organizations. Oh, and graduation season is in full swing.

In this flurry of activity you may miss or put off taking a look at the May NACEJournal. Here are a few reasons not to delay (or at least take it on the plane with you):

1. Networking - peruse for icebreakers to use while waiting for a session to start.

2. Get the word on NACE award winners - see your reputation as a prognosticator soar when you predict this year's ChevronTexaco award. No one needs to know you read it there first.

3. Hot off the press research and stats to fuel your insightful questions to session presenters.

4. Get the inside scoop on this year's Future Directions Committee and their presentation "Career Services 2018: Embracing the Seismic Shifts in Work Force Development". This way you can come ready to discuss the future.

Never enough time...USE a PLANNER!

So how do you figure out what to do when you are on site at the conference? Try creating a schedule using the conference planner found here.

This is a cool tool that your whole team can use to plan your day! WARNING: dont forget sessions can fill up so you many want to have an alternate just in case. Rooms should NOT be shut out so early this year as the session rooms are larger but you never know.

No Experience? Volunteer. Even After Being Hired.

One of the most frequent statements that we hear from frustrated job seekers is that employers are rejecting their applications because they lack experience. The job seekers typically wonder how it is that they can get experience if no one will hire them.

The answer to that conundrum is that the job seekers should get the experience they need outside of the job market. Instead of looking for someone to pay you and to give you the experience you need, instead look for someone who will only give you the experience you need. That's right, work for free. Volunteer.

But what about those who are employed and struggling to advance? Their paths are frequently blocked or at least delayed by their lack of experience. If their employer won't give them the experience they need in order to earn the sought after promotion, how can they obtain the promotion? Again, work for free. Volunteer.

A small but growing number of employers are encouraging their employees to volunteer occasionally or even full-time in an effort to inspire the employees, give back to the community, and shift the cost of training the employees to other organizations. But everyone wins in these arrangements so don't infer that I'm being critical of them. Far from it. I think they're fabulous.

Ernst & Young, for example, has allowed some of its accountants to volunteer for weeks and even months for non-profits. The firm covers transportation, food, and hotel expenses and even keeps the employees on its payroll so they don't suffer any loss of income. What they get back are employees who are far better qualified to do far more complicated work. Which means that E&Y has made a wise investment as it has essentially invested the costs associated with allowing its employees to volunteer their time for the non-profits and will quickly recoup that investment by being able to bill those employees out at much higher hourly rates to its clients.

And don't forget about the benefits these volunteer programs have when it comes time to recruit the next class of college students searching for internships or recent graduates hunting for entry level jobs and other career opportunities. A 2006 study by brand strategy and communications agency Cone Inc. found that 79 percent of Gen Y'ers want to work for organizations which care about how they affect or contribute to society. If your organization allows, encourages, or even pays for its employees to work for non-profits in a volunteer capacity then your organization's brand will skyrocket as you'll be demonstrating that you care about how you affect and contribute to society.

Best job sites?

There was an interesting article in Fortune magazine last week about the 30 best web sites for job seekers. With over 40,000 sites currently online that offer job and career information, this list is hardly a thorough overview of the who's who of the job site world, but it is interesting to peruse the winners. The 'best of' lists are broken down into different industries, professions, and locations.

Do you have any sites for job seekers that you love that aren't listed?

Forums are back! And a WIKI? YAY or what???

Yes! We have Forums at 4 again! This year they start at 4:15 (gotta keep eveyobdy on their toes.....) and there is only one session thi syear. Topics are red hot and facilitators are ready to keep everybody talking!


During a facilitator session yesterday, I thought we might want to try an experiment this year.....anybody up for starting a wiki for the ideas generated from the forums? Each session could have a page on the wiki and things could be added after the session.

IF .....anyone comments on this and tells me it is a good idea...I'll run with it and set up the wiki. SILENCE......means no thank you!

Pick the Party Tunes!!

Our Thursday night entertainment is one of New Orleans' most revered local groups, The Topcats, consistently voted top cover band. They have played with many legends and have been around the New Orleans music scene for a long time. They will be playing on Thursday evening May 29 from 8-11 in the Acadia Ballroom at the Marriott at 555 Canal. It promises to be a GREAT party with desserts, coffee and (come on it is New Orleans)drinks!

So what songs need to played at party for NACE'ers? Got a favorite you just have to hear or it isn't a party? Their songlist spans the pre-50's to today and you can find it here . Take a look and drop a comment with your favorites................who knows...maybe if they play it, you can join them!! Or you might win a fabulous prize!!

Parents…can’t live with ‘em…can’t get their kids hired without ‘em…

I’ve been to a year’s worth of NACE and NACE regional affiliate conferences and am always intrigued by the number of sessions that discuss the issue of parents in career services and recruiting. Oh, the tales that are told: Fortune 500 corporations that fund elaborate “parent orientations” to coincide with their new hire orientation sessions; career service offices that spend just as much time and energy informing parents of their offspring’s career options as they do the students; and of course, then there are the stories about the parents themselves… The media has been focusing on this for several years; these articles from USA Today, Forbes, and MSNBC aren’t new.

I spent six years as a middle school teacher and saw this trend creeping up the education ladder. But while middle school seems like an understandable time period for parents to hover, college graduates seem a bit old for this kind of treatment.

One of the interesting studies I’ve read recently was published in December’s Journal of Family Psychology. In this study, 392 unmarried college students and at least one of their parents were surveyed about whether these students are perceived as adults or not. It stands to reason that if only 16% of the 18 to 26 year olds see themselves as adults, their parents’ perception may not be that different (16% of moms and 19% of dads perceive their children as adults). You can read more in this USA Today article or this article in the Chronicle of Higher Education (if you have a subscription to the latter).

So while the negatives are fairly well documented, what do you see as the benefits of this kind of uber-close relationship between parents and children (aside from making sure that they get to interviews on time)? Is this trend going away anytime soon? What are you doing to accommodate parents, whether in terms of career services or organizational recruiting?

Fascinating way to think about ATTENDING a session- although the blog is directed towards presenters...

"But what we aren't doing, and where the real opportunity might exist, is crafting tools and resources that support all meeting attendees as catalysts for content sharing and meaningful change in their own organizations. We should think of every single meeting planned and workshop created as a train-the-trainer event, an equip-the-teacher opportunity."

Read the whole post here:
http://jeffreycufaude.blogspot.com/2008/05/one-to-many.html

Wouldn't it be great if as an attendee you went in with the idea that you had to go back and teach others? How can presenters make this happen? Or is just too darn much to ask??

Planet GREEN!

If you havent seen this reinvention of a small town...you might want to:
http://planetgreen.discovery.com/tv/greensburg//?site=PLG

Watching a segment over the weekend really makes you think about all the efforts that COULD be made in helping build a sustainable earth. This town is a great example of what can be done and it is also a testament to what people can do when they decide to overcome adversity in a positive way.

So what does this have to do with us...well, as you know we are making every effort to make our meeting more green- recycling, less printing etc. ... People around here are shake their heads anytime someone mentions printing - "Nancy won't let us!"...well, not really but if we are at least THINKING before we print something then we are doing better.

But Wait...I am in a concurrent session and there are not 100 small pieces of paper lying around just waiting for me to fill them out? NOPE!! In keeping with the green efforts and MAJOR paper waster was session evaluations - some turned in, some not etc! So this year you will have the opportunity to complete session evaluations online. We have done the conference evaluations online for several years but this will be a first for sessions. It really is exciting and will keep our efforts to be green strong! Be sure to complete them after you attend sessions! Dont forget - FREE WIRELESS - sponsored by NACE - in the convention center meeting rooms!!

A Great Gift to Our Nation

I recently completed watching Battle 360, a multi-part series on the History Channel about the famed World War II carrier, the U.S.S. Enterprise. Pam Webster of Enterprise Rent-a-Car gave me the heads-up about the series and am I ever glad that she did. It was fabulous.

Enterprise Rent-a-Car was founded in 1957 by Enterprise by Jack Crawford Taylor, father of current CEO, Andy Taylor. Jack served as a fighter pilot on the U.S.S. Enterprise during World War II. The History Channel series did a very nice job of tying the men and women of Enterprise Rent-a-Car together with the proud legacy of the U.S.S. Enterprise.

For history buffs, Battle 360 was a fabulous trip back in time with plenty of computer generated graphics, historic film footage, and recent interviews of veterans. For those of us fortunate enough never to have been in such circumstances, the show was an important reminder of the incredible sacrifices made by an incredible generation. Over and over again you hear these men and women state that they weren't heroes; they were just doing their jobs. Well, they were heroes and because they did their jobs as well as anyone could ever hope we enjoy liberty.

The men and women of Enterprise Rent-a-Car give the world of college recruiting great gift after great gift. They are always there for us as sponsors, organizers, and more. They also gave the country a great gift by helping us to remember the U.S.S. Enterprise and its vital role in our history.

Text messages - as Marketing Tool?

I see that many of the sessions at the conference surround the topic of technology. And marketing is a big one too. So put those together and we're probably all thinking about ways to use technology to market our programs.

There's the standard website and email format that comes to mind first. But, I haven't really heard a lot about using text messaging as a marketing avenue. I feel like it's kind of a random thought I'm throwing out there, because I don't even know if it would be possible (or legal/ethical). And here I may also be showing a little bit of my limitations with technology. Personally, I've written one text message in my life and it took me about 5 minutes to write it and figure out how to send it!.

Emails seem to be easily ignored or deleted because we're all overwhelmed with the number of emails we get each day. But students seem to be very in tune with their cell phones for text messaging. But, is it even possible to send text messages to groups of people? (Again, my lack of knowledge shining through here). Would students be receptive to this kind of marketing, or would they be more annoyed by it? Are there legal/ethical limitations to this?

Although I can think of the advantages of using text messages to promote career programs, personally, I think if I were to receive text messages of the "marketing" variety, I would fall more on the "annoyed" side. But that's just me. What do you think? Anybody seen/ heard of this being done anywhere?

Is it May already?

Where has the time gone? Graduation is a week and a day away. While I am looking forward to the NACE Conference coming up at the end of the month, I confess I have hardly looked at the materials yet. I have another trip scheduled two weeks before and I haven't even had time to review that one yet either. I'm sure I could become more efficient in some areas but I also think there is just more to do. Hmmm, maybe there is a good session on that. I'll have to look, when I get the time.

Seriously, glancing through the schedule again I am reminded of the excellent topics and the difficult decisions I will have to make. Certainly a large area of interest revolves around marketing to students and I believe (along with many others) one key component is our effective use of technology. The only problem is that it keeps changing. There are several sessions within the technology track that look like they will provide some up-to-date information on what types of technology students are using now and how we might channel this power for our own purposes. I hope to also have the opportunity to discuss new technology in an attempt to be prepared instead of always playing catch-up.